Wanting For Reasons

“Honcho?”

Jay has been quiet – for Jay – for the last hour as we’ve walked through the town of Shakespine Falls. The locals insist the founder didn’t misspell Shakespeare every chance they get; beyond that, there isn’t much to it. Which doesn’t mean a wandering magician can’t help. Some fixed walls there, ending an argument here. I walk, using small magics, finding the places where need and desires mesh. Jay does other bindings. He’s eleven, from far, far Outside the universe and can do things with binding that nothing else in the universe comes close to attempting. Jay has limits, but it’s mostly because he’s worried we’d be scared of him if he didn’t.

I glance over, wrap a ward about us. “You have a serious face on, kiddo.”

Jay doesn’t even crack a smile. I don’t stop dead, but it’s a near thing as I gesture to a park bench. Jay plops down on it and leans against me with a huge sigh. We are bound together, and I feel the bindings flow between us. Understanding. Reassurance. Fear.

Jay is afraid of making me or Charlie angry with him. Terrified of hurting us. But this fear goes deeper. Deep and wild and barely contained. Today, adventures haven’t distracted Jay from himself, which is always dangerous. “Jay.”

He gulps. “Someone was telling me abou a happiness that’s forever, Honcho, but it’s not.”

No exclamation, no huge innocent grin that only Jay can manage. “I know.”

“I might be,” he whispers, the words felt more than heard. “I’m tough –.” And he doesn’t add ‘like a Jay’, which sets off almost every internal alarm I have. “And I’ve met me in the future and I know I live a long time, and I’m friends with Time and I get bigger, and even stronger and –.” He bites into his lower lip.

“It’s possible. Few things aren’t where a Jay is concerneed.”

“But Honcho, people don’t get forever. Even the fae don’t, and they’re almost as old as magic. Forever is long after there is no universe, and when even the wild places Outsides are tamed or gone.” And Jay falls silent, staring inward at some vista I can’t even imagine.

“It could be that you are all,” I say softly, “but that’s not the same as all that would be left. You would contain it, be a house of memory as much as jaysome, Jay. Nothing truly ends if it is remembered, and you will know and remember so much. ”

I hug him gently. “As long as we have wants, we have reasons for living. And you’ll never run out of wants.”

“I won’t? Not even when I run out of jaysome?”

“Not even then,” I say, a promise and prediction both. “Jaysome is you, Jay. It’s not something you can lose or even give away. Not at the core of it. Desire can be lost, will misplaced, But you’re worth doesn’t change.”

“Oh!” And he hugs me tightly, and he is scared, and I just hold him and say nothing at all. Sometimes this is all I can do, to be will and desire both. To spin lies so perfect that Jay will never disbelieve them, no matter what happens in any future.

For this, I may be called a monster. But I am hardly the only one and sometimes all I can do, monstrous or not, is be a moment Jay will never forget. No matter what it costs. There are always reasons to hide.

But there are always more to love. There have to be. There have to be, or we would all of us drown under sorrows too big to contain even with jaysome.